WikiLeaks

Assange, Julian Paul

Julian Paul Assange (äsänj´), 1971–, Australian Internet journalist and activist, founder of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website that publishes documents and images considered confidential or secret by governments and businesses. As a teenager, under the name Mendax, he became a programmer and hacker; he was charged with cybercrime in 1991 but received only a small fine. During the 1990s he engaged in various computer-related activities and studied at Melbourne Univ. Believing that
"collaborative secrecy"
characterizes institutions and that they can be disrupted by publicizing their internal secrets, he founded WikiLeaks in 2006. Its released information has included material on murders in Kenya and E Timor, Scientology, and the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, but the most notorious leaks are those that began in 2010 involving classified Pentagon materials on the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts and classified U.S. State Dept. diplomatic traffic. The release of unedited material that reveals the names of (and thus endangers) confidential sources has been widely criticized. His 2010 arrest in England on Swedish sex-crime charges and the placement of financial and Internet restrictions on WikiLeaks led to cyber attacks by ostensible Assange supporters against websites associated with those actions; there also have been cyber attacks from unidentified quarters against WikiLeaks. After he lost his appeal of extradition to Sweden in the British courts, he sought refuge (2012) in Ecuador's London embassy and was granted political asylum by Ecuador. In 2016, in what was widely regarded as an attempt to sabotage the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton, WikiLeaks released Democratic party materials reportedly stolen at the behest of the Russian government. Sweden ended its attempt to extradite him in 2017, but Assange still faced possible arrest in Britain and extradition to the United States and remained in Ecuador's embassy. Ecuador subsequently granted him citizenship and unsuccessfully sought diplomatic status for him. The controversial Assange is considered by some a criminal endangering both governments and individuals and by others a hero devoted to revealing vital hidden truths.